Wednesday, May 2, 2007

We arrived in Kadingding after about 30 or 40 minutes of driving. This is the village where Amos is the chief. We came to deliver some food, and to photograph a couple of TEP kids.

While there I was asked to photograph this young boy, Korkor Lomakul. As you can see from the photo, he's missing a leg. This is one of the very sad examples of inferior medical care in the area. He was bitten by a snake. I don't know the whole story, but the medical services either didn't know how to treat the bite or didn't have the anti-venom, but for whatever reason, they decided they couldn't treat him – and so amputated his leg. This is part of the painful reality of the society out here. One one hand, there is medical treatment, but it's not great and it's hard to get to. And that treatment occasionally does things like cuts off an entire leg to treat a snake bite. On the other hand, if there were no treatment available at all, then the boy probably would have died. Cutting off his leg probably saved his life, but it also partially destroyed it. His family abandoned him when he lost his leg. This goes back to something I was talking about earlier where deformed children are said to have "bad spirits" and will be shunned, abandoned, never married. It's a very rough life out here in the bush. Amos's clan adopted him, and he lives here now, in Kadingding.

More celebration was had to thank our delivery of food. This was much lower key and smaller than the big feed at the Watering Hole, as it was only one village. But there was no less enthusiasm. It's such a treat to see this native dancing and singing, and to know they are truly grateful for what they are given. It's incredibly heart warming to see.

I photographed two more TEP kids here at Kadingding. We then moved on to Watering Hole where I photographed one, and to Nginyang for another. Yes I was supposed to see more kids in these villages – but if they weren't there, they didn't get their picture taken. Frustrating and sad.